Research and development in the field of photovoltaics has focused on lowering production costs. One way of accomplishing this goal is to position both the negative contact and the positive contact on the rear surface of the photovoltaic device. Moving all connection circuitry to the rear surface allows for optimized module efficiency by increasing the packing density of the individual photovoltaic cells, reducing shading and resistive losses, while also changing the appearance of the outside surface to a uniform color.
Research and development in photovoltaics has also focused on advancing the performance of organo-metal halide absorber materials, in particular lead halide perovskites. Certified efficiencies as high as 20.1% have been reported for perovskites, thus placing pervoskites efficiencies in the same performance range as other state-of-the-art technologies.
However, better performing, more efficient, and longer lifetime photovoltaic device designs are still needed, as well as simpler, more cost-effective methods for making such devices. Thus, there remains a need for both better performing perovskite halide films, and photovoltaic devices made therefrom, but also improved manufacturing methods for making high performance perovskite halide films and photovoltaic devices.